Yellow submarined: did Hong Kong trade office pressure Australian cultural festival to drop umbrella display?
- Workshop’s backer says it was told use of yellow umbrellas was not acceptable; trade office says programming decisions ‘made by organiser’
- The workshop was later pulled altogether, with the group openly speculating whether Hong Kong festival partner had a hand in decision
Hong Kong’s trade office in Australia has sought to distance itself from a brewing controversy over allegations that it exerted political influence on the country’s largest Asian-themed festival to pull a cultural workshop that featured yellow umbrellas – a local protest emblem.
The furore over the cancelled workshop was such that Australian foreign affairs minister Marise Payne waded into the fray during a Senate hearing on Thursday, saying Canberra would follow up on the matter.
At the centre of the allegations is a proposed workshop by the Adelaide-based Hong Kong Cultural Association of South Australia that would have taken place at the OzAsia Festival, which kicked off last week and runs until November 7.
The Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Sydney is listed as one of the “executive festival partners” for this year’s event, according to the OzAsia Festival website, as is the Australian government. The Confucius Institute at the University of Adelaide is one of its “programme partners”.
The association had planned an interactive workshop that would have taken visitors through Hong Kong’s food and cultural scenes and illustrated a century of transformation, from humble fishing village to international financial centre. The association told local media that it had intended to put on the workshop last weekend.
